Day by Day

Sunday, November 20, 2005

I am glad David Skibbins is tired of the lies and the shame of Iraq. Does that include the white phosphorus (WP) hoax that the Italian communist propaganda television station Rai News24 attempted?

Expert analysts agree that the “bombs raining down on the city” segment cited by Mr. Skibbins was not filmed at Fallujah, and had nothing to do with this operation.

More lies followed. Western journalists had reported the use of WP shells and their effects on “insurgents” over a year ago. See San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post articles, 10 Nov 2004, U.S. drives into heart of Fallujah.

In actuality, there were reporters from many backgrounds and nationalities in Fallujah at the time, and none of them saw what was "reported" a year later by Rai News24.

The so-called bodies of Fallujah residents could have been filmed anywhere, but they most certainly had not been killed by WP. WP burns both flesh and clothes. It does not “caramelize” or turn flesh to leather, leaving the clothes intact. Analysts concluded from the “high quality close ups” that the bodies were actually in a state of decomposition not caused by the well-known effects of WP.

Since WP is not an illegal weapon, the Army openly described its use in Fallujah, as noted by Mr. Skibbins. I don’t know why he included this information just prior to concluding: “We are becoming so much worse than Saddam.” The quotation he included documented the legal and usual use of WP. Mr. Skibbins in his ignorance must have thought he caught the US Army confessing atrocities.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

White phosphorus use on enemy combatants was not kept a secret, unless you consider it being reported in the SF Chronicle keeping it a secret because hardly anyone reads it (circulation down 16%, the biggest drop in a major newspaper in years). However, the Washington Post ran the same article a year ago. U.S. drives into heart of Fallujah - Army, Marines face rockets and bombs in battle to take insurgents' stronghold (SF Chronicle, 10 Nov. 2004)U.S. Marines said American forces had taken control today of 70 percent of Fallujah in the third day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold.[...]Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night by air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning. "Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."

Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns. Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted." [emphasis added]

This comment was not part of the Chronicle article, but was added to point out that the use of white phosphorus against enemy combatants is legal

"White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects."

Enemy combatants can be killed by many means. Bullets. Bombs. Burning. Asphyxiation. Crushing. The whole idea of having a military you unleash on an enemy is to kill the enemy and to break his things. If the enemy is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, certain protocols apply, but usually don't much effect the enemy combatant who has been killed. It does apply to civilians to an extent, although the bombings of London, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, etc. may cause some civilians to feel a bit threatened. Of course, they would have been in a slightly happier position if their armies had been less brutal (check out Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the Holocaust, siege of Leningrad, the slaughter of Soviet POW's during Operation Barbarossa, etc). If the enemy is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, we still pretty much kill him in the same way, (he is probably beyond caring, except now he can look forward to 72 virgins) but it is harder to tell who the enemy is -- no uniforms, no government allegiances and leadership, no borders or country -- so in these instances, a propagandist or apologist for such enemy combatants can call just about any terrorist killed a "civilian." And can film whatever they think useful, such as dead bodies in unburnt clothing, and make up a story about the mystical (and mythical) effects of WP.

Now your question: "As for the white phosphorus reports the next thing you will say the pictures of dead women and kids were made up."

No, I won't say that the pictures of dead women and kids were made up. But it is obvious they were not killed by WP!

WP burns, not preserves. The Iraqis themselves who examined mujahadeen killed by WP described their flesh as having been burn and melted (see the Chronicle story above, written over a year ago)

A military expert viewed the Italian film and wrote:"The pictures of dead bodies while hideous provide no analytical value. Contrast the opening from Vietnam, with the burned little girl, running from a napalmed village. That is conclusive evidence. Nothing about these dead bodies looked any different to the many dead bodies I have seen analyzing other videos (of dead bodies) that were all made that way (dead) by Saddam’s regime and then by Jihadists. There is no way to determine what killed these people by looking at pictures, except maybe by a forensics expert."

To continue:WP is legal to use on combatants. There is no credible evidence that it was used on civilians. The garbage about civilians having caramelized skin, but unburnt clothing, being used as proof of WP use is laughable. WP burns the Hell out of clothing! And flesh too! It does the opposite of what the Italian documentary said was found.

The US did not lie about its use. The US Ambassador to London, Robert Tuttle, mistakenly said that the WP ammunition was not used in the TWO ROLES it's specifically designed for: Screening and marking. He said it was used only for illumination. Since its main role is to obscure the enemy by producing smoke, that means it is not worth a damn for illumination. The ambassador must have been thinking of star shells.

"A recent documentary by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, claimed that Iraqi civilians, including women and children, had died of burns caused by white phosphorus during the assault on Falluja. The report has been strenuously denied by the US. But Col Venable said it had been used to dislodge enemy fighters from entrenched positions in the city."White phosphorus is a conventional munition. It is not a chemical weapon. They are not outlawed or illegal," he told the BBC. "We use them primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. However, it is an incendiary weapon, and may be used against enemy combatants."Asked if it was used as an offensive weapon during the siege of Falluja, he replied: "Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants. When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on, and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position: the combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so you can kill them with high explosives.'"

Another writer adds:

"So we have "insurgents" and "mujahadeen" being killed by white phosphorus which is being reported to have been used to "hide the movement" of Marines. WP is doctrinally used to cause casualties among the enemy (insurgents, mujahadeen) and as an obscurant (hide movement). If these are the uses being referenced in the story, then I have no problem with them. Said another way, if this is the incident, this is a non-story".

About the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah, American forces had embedded reporters from many backgrounds and nationalities in Fallujah who didn't see any of what was "reported" a year later by an Italian communist TV station. Of course, the terrorists had their own members and sympathizers covering their activities. The current misreporting that the military use of white phosphorus is illegal is just one of many such instances you see in the European press.

At any rate, there seems to have been a moral equivalence drawn between the forces -- it is bad for the American forces to demolish enemy forces using the usual and customary means of warfare, whereas it is OK that the terrorists kill huge numbers of Iraqi civilians -- and Jordanians, and Egyptians, and Indonesians, and Indians -- and conduct their activities without following any of the rules of warfare. They practice torture, beheadings, assassinations and bombings of civilians in mosques, markets, and schools, with no need to answer to any court of law or of world opinion. On the other hand, the stupid actions of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib, which did not amount to much more than a fraternity initiation (actually less, because sometimes college students die in the initiations), are treated as if all civilized society had ceased. And some unfounded allegations about Koran disrespect at Guantanemo were treated as the equivalent of The Holocaust. Hell, in Saudi Arabia the Bible is confiscated and burned if you try to bring it with you for your own private worship. A crucifix is not allowed. In Denmark Muslims want artists killed who drew their impressions of Mohammed. In Britain piggy banks have been banned in some locales, and children's books with pigs on the covers have been removed from schools and shops. And yet, we're the intolerant ones?

The idiots who mistreated the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were tried and punished. The bastards who bomb and behead have to fear being caught or killed by us, but not being punished by their own leaders.

In Britain, George Galloway is treated as a hero, because he talked tough (and lied under oath) to Congress. All the evidence showing the Oil For Food money that flowed to him, to his wife, and to his "charity" doesn't seem to make a difference to America haters in Europe. In fact, in Europe we are considered the terrorists, and the jihadists are "freedom fighters." According to Europeans, Iran doesn't really mean it when its president calls for the elimination of Israel, and as the Iraqis democratically vote for a constitution and their leaders, the first Arab country to have free elections, the US is said to be there to take over Iraq, and steal all the oil. I wonder, has anyone noticed that, after over two years in Iraq, Iraq still has the oil and we could sure use more ourselves?

I also wonder it they notice that, until the Iraqi elections, Israel was the only nation in the middle east where an Arab could be democratically elected to office? In fact, Israel had more Muslims serving in democratically elected positions than all the Arab countries combined. And Arafat had more money in Swiss bank accounts that the Palestinian Authority had to pay its "peacekeeping" forces.

A lot of Oil For Food money flowed from Saddam to officials in France, Germany, Russia, and the United Nations. Guess who wanted to not invade Iraq, and who wanted to continue the sanctions that kept the Oil For Food bribes flowing?

To see how even "respected" news organizations like 60 Minutes attack us and Israel, go here or Google "Pallywood" and click on the first link, "The Second Draft." 60 Minutes producers and presenters were either duped by the Palestinians, or were willing accomplices. Either way, it doesn't say anything good about one of the biggest stars of the main stream media. And of course, in Europe the Palestinians are the peacelovers, and Israel and America are the warmongers.

It seems the world is upside down, like Alice through the Looking Glass, and college students cheer for dictators, and jeer those who fight for freedom. They demand academic freedom for an art plagiarist like Ward Churchill, who called those killed in 9/11 "little Eichmans" who deserved their fate. At the same time, the academic community, champions of diversity, virtually excludes conservatives from academia -- one liberal professor said conservatives weren't smart enough to be college professors. In the name of freedom, colleges practice political correctness -- students now have the right not to be offended by someone disagreeing with them, if that someone is conservative. Being opposed to affirmative action is "hate" speech. Or abortion. Or homosexual marriage. If you oppose these, you are both a hatemonger and a bigot.

In conclusion, much of the world believes the worst of the United States, facts be damned. Maybe it's because we have been too successful. Certainly, when a nation with five percent of the world's population produces over a third of the world product, and is the place where more people in the world want to live than any other, it does generate a lot of envy. Many people want to see us taken down a peg, not because they think they know a better way to run an economy, or live in freedom, but because our success annoys the Hell out of them.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Conservatives – dumb or just wicked?

"What Hillary and other elitists... are saying is that anyone who disagrees with them -- who adheres to limited government, the free market, traditional morality and a strong foreign policy -- just doesn’t get it. The counterpart is that people with conservative values are wicked. So, either we’re too dumb to understand how depraved our positions are, or we’re motivated by malice. The Left, on the other hand, is genius personified. Clearly, considerable brain-power went into formulating the tenets of modern liberalism: Tax increases will fuel an economic boom. Reverse discrimination furthers racial harmony. Cutting defense and a foreign policy that convinces the bin Ladens of the world that we’re a bunch of wimps is the way to keep America safe. Handouts inculcate a work ethic. Gun control -- which disarms potential victims -- is the best way to fight crime. Attacking parental authority and facilitating family dissolution helps children. Condom distribution promotes responsibility among adolescents. Not drilling in the Artic Wildlife Refuge and the virtual abandonment of nuclear power contributes to energy self-sufficiency. Brilliant!... The Left sincerely believes that ordinary Americans are imbeciles -- unfortunates who are sorely in need of a keeper (big government) to bring us in out of the rain and keep us from drooling all over ourselves." --Don Feder

Monday, November 14, 2005

If you Google "Clinton Iraq 1998," all the Democratic charges that President Bush lied about Iraqi intelligence are blown apart. Or maybe you will find that President Bush believed Clinton's lies, Madeline Albright's lies, the CIA's lies, lies told by the French, British and Russian leaders and intelligence services -- all these leaders and governmental agencies were four-square that Saddam had WMD and was a threat to the world.

More recently, Senator Jay Rockefeller, in voting to authorize war against Saddam, in a speech on the Senate floor October 10, 2002, not only accused Saddam of being a threat and having WMD, but also accused Saddam of continuing a nuclear weapons program that would soon produce a bomb. Of course, just the other day on Fox News Sunday, he demonstrated that he didn't have a clue what he was saying then, or for that matter, what he is saying now. That sounds like a capsule summary of the entire Democratic Party.

As for President Bush, you aren't a liar if you believe what you are saying is the truth. And President Bush was only repeating what President Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, and all the Democratic leadership said before and after Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox on December 16, 1998.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

The Democrats are full of liars who call President Bush a liar. Fortunately, they foolishly rush to expose their falsehoods on national television. The most recent to do so was Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and colleague of former Grand Kleagle of the Klu Klux Klan, former Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate, and still the Senior Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace played two clips of Senator Rockefeller speaking about voting for the Iraq war resolution on October 10, 2002: "I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th, that question is increasingly outdated."

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons. And will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years and he could have it earlier."

When Chris Wallace asked about his support then for the war resolution, Sen. Rockefeller replied: “Chris, there's always the same conversation. You know it was not the Congress that sent 135,000 or 150,000 troops.”

Wallace: “But you voted, sir, and aren't you responsible for your vote?”

Sen. Rockefeller: “No.”

Wallace: “You're not?”

Senator Rockefeller and about 100 other Democrat senators and representatives weren't cutting Saddam any slack then. However, they sure have changed.

But how does the constant repetition of, ‘Bush fooled me, I didn’t know what I was doing!’ help the Democrats? Maybe they can make a winning campaign slogan, like “We Really Are Dumber than Bush!”

As always, Bill Clinton gets the last word: “If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program.”

Dr. Sanity analyzes Bush Derangement Syndrome: "After 9/11, in many cases, even a mild dislike of "W" rapidly morphed into the ferocious Bush hatred we are now all familiar with. The opposition to a conservative Republican; and reasonable disagreement with his policies became a swooning hysteria; and an unmitigated, deranged hatred with all the accompanying paranoid delusions."

See what else Dr. Sanity has to say. Then think about it every time a liberal blames everything wrong in the world on what Bush did, or what Bush didn't do, or blames Bush for things that happened even before he became President. No lie. Yesterday a liberal told me Bush was responsible for Clinton and Gore accusing Saddam of having WMD! Then she followed it up by noting that Bush had not been elected president in 2004. Let's see -- delusional, in denial, anger displacement, disproportionate anger -- all the classic symptoms of Bush Derangement Syndrome. And she's a carrier! Facts and logic have no effect on her.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

I have just three bits of advise for President Bush - Attack! Attack! Attack!

And here is some more real good advice for President Bush, from Jayson at "Countercolumn - All your bias are belong to me."

"Keep it up, and keep putting the Democrats' prewar words out there, verbatim. No question should come up from the press pool without Kennedy's or Kerry's or Gore's or Clinton's words coming back at them. Force the press to ask them for an accounting. Put them on the spot. Be combative. The American people have followed you before. They'll follow you again. You're at your best when you're in a fight.

You're in a fight now, Mr. President."

Go here for the entire post. And browse the rest of Jayson's blog while you're there. He's well worth a daily visit.

For more, go here for a little history of the British in Afghanistan, and a Kipling poem that ends:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,And the women come out to cut up what remains,Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brainsAn' go to your Gawd like a soldier,Go, go, go like a soldier,Go, go, go like a soldier,Go, go, go like a soldier,So-oldier of the Queen !

In my 21 Air Force years, I was a Cold War warrior. The only foreign combat I was involved in was breaking up a fight between some drunk British soccer fans at the train station after a match in Ipswich, England.

My oldest son, Bruce, seems to always be in action somewhere in the world - Iraq, New Orleans, Italy - serving in the Nevada National Guard, and Haiti, Guantanamo, Egypt, Germany... when he was Regular Army. There's not many similarities between his service and the service of the British Tommy Kipling wrote of - for one, the Tommy didn't need a lawyer if he imprisoned an unlawful combatant, or touched a prisoner's Koran with an ungloved hand - except we too don't appreciate their worth in peacetime as they train and prepare (and thereby prevent) war. And the many times we haven't had armed forces trained and ready to fight never prevented war - it just invited it.

The above is a fact, not an opinion. I have heard many liberals opine that if we got rid of our weapons, everyone would be our friends. "Everyone is entitled to have their own opinions. No one is entitled to have their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, maybe the last sensible Democrat.

When Bruce and the rest come marching home again, and the world is all at peace, consider that it will stay at peace only if we are ready to fight and decisively win. We never have been ready to do that in the past, but there is always a first time for everything, and hope dies hard. Over a hundred years ago, Kipling penned his plea for respect for the soldier in peacetime, and reminded his countrymen of the terrible sacrifices endured in wartime.

November 11, 2005Democrats Deny Having Pre-War Intelligenceby Scott Ott(2005-11-11) — Democrats in Congress today rejected President George Bush’s accusation that they’re trying to rewrite history, which shows they supported the Iraq war based on the same intelligence that drove his decision to send in the troops.

“We had no pre-war intelligence,” said Sen. John Kerry, “History will show that none of the leading Democrats had substantial intelligence. Anyone who remembers what we did then knows that the president is making a baseless allegation. I think history will bear out my contention that we Democrats lacked the intelligence to make such an important decision.”The junior Senator from Massachusetts said he continues “to faithfully support the troops who uselessly die for a lie in Iraq.”

“Our troops deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war will remain firm in our conviction that we didn’t know what we were doing at the time,” Sen. Kerry said. “It’s important, on Veteran’s Day, to remember that our Democrat commitment to our military hasn’t changed.”

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Today the Chronicle headlined Gov. Schwarzenegger calling the Dems “girlie men,” and buried Sandy Berger’s “mishandling” of classified material on page three. Mr. Berger said he made an “honest” mistake, leading one to believe that Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser knew less about handling classified material than I did as an Airman Third Class in Turkey eavesdropping on the Soviets in 1964.

To compound the “mistake,” Democrat leaders such as Senator Tom Daschle called the timing of the disclosure of the investigation “suspicious.” I suppose Tom means the Republicans are using this for political advantage, but Tom overlooks the Dem’s advantage gained from hiding information from the 9/11 Commission.

Those who say that playing with classified information is no big deal are poor students of history, and don't understand “knowledge is power.” Why did Berger do it? For Bill Clinton's legacy? Did he have to “take one for the Slicker?”

Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., compared the treatment of enemy combatants at Guantanamo to the Nazis, Soviet Gulag, and Pol Pot. Aside from the fact that no Guantanamo prisoner has died, and tens of millions died at the hands of (National) Socialists and Communists, the “torture” he cited would make a fraternity pledge laugh. I had it tougher in Air Force Basic Training, the easiest by far of all the services.

About two years ago, my oldest son began an eight-month tour of duty in Iraq with the Nevada National Guard. For many months he endured heat, filth, and short rations that are unknown at Guantanamo.

Republicans remove leaders, such as Trent Lott, when they make dumb remarks, while Democrats honor Howard Dean and Dick Durbin for their offensive Nazi and Gulag comparisons. Democrats, please don’t change.

The 11 April San Francisco Chronicle detailed President Clinton’s attempt to overhaul Social Security in 1998. According to the Chronicle, what Clinton said then and what President Bush is saying now are strikingly similar.

What Bill Clinton knew, the New York Times concedes, and even the Chronicle admits is that the Trust Fund only exists on paper.

Medicare expenses already exceed revenues, and would be robbing other government programs if today’s Social Security surplus was not being used to cover today’s Medicare shortfall. Soon Social Security will be broke too, and will be raping and pillaging other programs unless President Bush can rescue President Clinton’s blown job.

John Kerry said he threw his medals away to protest the Vietnam War. Then he emphatically confirmed to ABC that indeed he threw his medals away. But later he said he only threw away his ribbons, and that the medals belonged to someone else. If you keep changing your story, isn’t that called lying?

And if you pretend to do something, isn’t that called faking? Clearly, in his actions, John Kerry was faking taking a principled stand. And then lied about it.

I was in the Air Force over 21 years, and had the additional duty of Disaster Preparedness Officer at a base in the UK for over 5 years. My oldest son is in New Orleans right now with the Nevada National Guard. I know how we plan and train for emergencies, and the chain of command. From all I have read the past few days from the guys doing the work, they are doing an outstanding job of rescue and recovery, as they always do. And as always, the left parades their ignorance of logistics and planning, and belittles the hard and dangerous work accomplished by the active duty, guard, and reserve guys and gals. The left apparently thinks that each person in the military is a self-contained unit, capable of showing up and doing miraculous things anywhere at anytime, and the only problem is that the President does not unleash them to perform miracles because he does not care for blacks, because they are poor and Democrats. They probably are poor because they are Democrats, but that is another issue.The point is, hurricanes pack a Hell of a lot of energy, and human beings in their way get damaged, whether or not they are wearing a uniform. After the storm passes, the military come in and try to find out what happened, and then what to do about it.

Of course, the local authorities performed their duties in a responsible and timely manner beginning at least as early as after the last disaster. Knowing that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, they evacuate the hazard zone, because it is a lot easier and effective to help people outside the damage area than inside it.

How come all this seems incomprehensible to the left? None of it seems like rocket science. All the concepts and procedures are known, written down, and are supposed to be reviewed, evaluated, and practiced on a continuing basis. That is why, when you are faced with evacuating a large population that does not have its own transportation, you plan to move them with the transportation at hand -- New Orleans had hundreds of buses -- I've seen the pictures of buses in the flooded parking lots, spilling fuel and oil into the surrounding waters.

The first response is always local. Except the first response from the left is always, "It's Bush's fault."

(MoveOn.org provided a service on its website to make it easy to send letters to the editor. I and many conservatives are using MoveOn.org's website to participate in their letters to editors campaign. In fact, it was so well publicized in conservative blogs, that we probably represented a large percentage of their total activity.The following is the form letter I posted using the MoveOn.org addresses and template. Their tracking system showed I was the first and only person to use their system to send a letter to many of the smaller newspapers. Mine was the first and apparently only letter from their system to the ICO. 175+ went to the San Francisco Chronicle, and 30+ to the Press Democrat.)

I am following the talking points in the MoveOn.org website to write this letter. We need to stay the course in Iraq. World terrorism is pouring its resources into the fight, which consist largely of misguided fools willing to die for a lost cause. The Iraqi insurgents and their supporters are outnumbered a thousand to one by Iraqis who want to get on with their lives and experience liberty and freedom.

I have departed from the talking points suggested by MoveOn.org, which consist of baseless assumptions that Iraqis support the insurgents who are primarily targeting them.MoveOn.org ends its talking points that training of Iraqi forces be turned over to the international community - which is not interested or capable of doing any such training.

MoveOn.org says the Bush policy is out of touch with reality, while proving that they are totally reality challenged.

Sunday, November 11, was a night to remember, when the results of the latest exhaustive recount of the Florida election were released showing that President Bush won regardless of Supreme Court intervention. Immediately liberal Democrats launched into a frenzy of spin and rationalization. They argued that "overvoting," which to my knowledge is not counted in any election, and specifically not in Florida elections, should have been counted, giving Al Gore at best a resounding 171 vote margin.

In other news, a recent poll showed that two out of three Americans would now vote for President Bush over Al Gore, including half the Democrats. Another recent poll reported that nine of ten Americans prefer President Bush over Bill Clinton, and Gallup polls show President Bush has sustained an approximately 90 percent approval rating longer than any previous president. Since all of these studies and polls were released before the collapse of the Taliban, I am confident that President Bush will continue to do well in subsequent polls.

Incidentally, reference the ICO Editorial "Rough Justice," I do not understand why the justice system which is good enough for the American military (and was used by FDR in WW II) is not good enough for terrorists. I was subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice for over twenty-one years (1962-1984), and I do not recall any bleeding-heart liberals protesting that I was subject to a "Kafka-esque scenario" in a nation blind to injustice. As for the details of military justice procedure which were stated in the ICO editorial, in the military trials I served on, the accused did confront his accuser and did see the evidence against him, right here in the United States of America (and overseas), Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, and birthplace of the Bill of Rights.

Let’s roll!

At the same time, the results of voting in the People's Banana Republic of San Francisco were sort of released, after almost a week of delay due to the incompetence that is a traditional part of San Francisco elections. I wonder when liberal Democrats will realize and admit that Illinois had a higher percentage of spoiled ballots in the 2000 election, and that San Francisco elections should be supervised by Jimmy Carter and his group.

Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania has published research to the education community on each new president that includes an ‘IQ’ report among others. Its latest such report detailed its "findings" concerning the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush, and concluded that his IQ was the lowest of the modern presidents, and that on average the IQ's of Republicans were lower those of Democratic presidents. (The foregoing was the opening paragraph of the Lovenstein Institute hoax. The main stream media fell for it for several days.)

At the end of the report, the person who forwarded me a copy added a pointed question concerning the average intelligence of "Dubya's" supporters. Of course, I do not know the average IQ of "Dubya" supporters. In addition to my wife and myself, I do know a lot of bright, highly educated Republicans who are leaders in business, the military, and government, and many others who are financially "comfortable." In fact, Democrats themselves frequently stereotype Republicans as wealthy, and as leaders in business and other nonacademic fields. On the other hand, I do believe that the overwhelming support Clinton and then Gore received from low socioeconomic, abysmally educated minorities included very few measurably bright people. You may be unable to forgive my political incorrectness, but my family was poor and my parents were only high school graduates, and I believe in School Choice and the privatization of Social Security and education to give the poor and uneducated the means to raise themselves up as I did. Presently, the simple act of marking a ballot in a Florida or Illinois voting booth is too much for most hard-core Democrat supporters.

Concerning Democrat presidents, "Genius" Jimmy Carter was easily the most ineffective president of the last half of the 20th Century, Bill Clinton and JFK were the most immoral, and Clinton was only effective when he was dragged unwillingly into supporting Republican programs such as welfare reform and balancing the budget. Clinton famously did not accomplish any of his pet programs, and his (and Hillary's) failed health care plan was as big a blunder as JFK's Bay of Pigs fiasco, and would have rivaled the mess JFK got us into in Viet Nam if it had passed. LBJ continued the escalation of war in Southeast Asia, and left it to Nixon to finally extricate us. LBJ's morality was also typical of Democratic presidents, as Lady Bird recently confirmed, and his Great Society programs started the spending flood that continues to swamp the budget to this day. LBJ took Social Security "off budget" to mask the costs of his escalating war in Viet Nam, thereby speeding its collapse. FDR's so-called Social Security "Trust Fund" does not now contain any funds, only Treasury Bonds that the government will have to redeem by borrowing more when Social Security outlays soon vastly exceed income. Only the government can get away with such a "con" game for over sixty years and counting.

How bright were Republican presidents? Ike was the Allied key to victory in WW II, and as president led Republicans to achieve Civil Rights victories over intense opposition, primarily from Democrats who then dominated Congress. Nixon got us out of Viet Nam, and into China. Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military, replaced Carter's malaise with optimism, and pushed the Soviet Union to the brink of collapse. George H. W. Bush completed Reagan's triumph over the Soviets, and then superbly led allied forces to overwhelming dominance in the Gulf War. By the way, Reagan also reversed the double digit inflation, unemployment, and interest rates he inherited from Carter, and his 1981 tax cut began a period of almost unbroken economic prosperity that lasted right up to the high-tech failures during the last year of the Clinton presidency. Under Reagan, government tax revenues doubled after his 1981 tax cut, but the Democrat-dominated Congress did not keep spending cut promises, so and we ended up with deficits. Later, after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they reined in spending and soon achieved surpluses.

In conclusion, it seems that the education elite, who have given us a failed public education system, find Democrat presidents to be just as smart as they are, and further find that the much more effective Republican presidents do not measure up to their intellectual standards. For that we can be grateful!

Thanks for giving me enough rope to hang myself, or to share with others.

As an afterthought to my letter concerning the lack of Ms. Plame's "covertness," I served three years in the Air Force Security Service as a Russian linguist radio intercept operator in the mid-1960’s. We went to Russian classes at Indiana University in uniform. We had classes at the National Security Agency. We worked in a secure compound in Turkey. We knew the Soviets knew who we were, and had a pretty good idea of what we did. We also knew that the Soviets knew the names of everyone who openly worked in intelligence activities. Especially if they went to work at the National Security Agency everyday. Or the Central Intelligence Agency. Even if they always sneaked in the back way! How did we know they knew? Because it was and is really stupid to think your enemy is too dumb or too lazy to find out and keep track of the obvious.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, in a statement in December 1998 supporting President Clinton's four-day bombing of Iraq: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process. The responsibility of the United States in this conflict is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to minimize the danger to our troops and to diminish the suffering of the Iraqi people."

On December 16, 1998, Bill Clinton ordered a strike "to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, and its military capacity to threaten their neighbors. Their purpose is to protect the national interests of the United States..." February 17, 1998, Bill Clinton: "Saddam's son-in-law and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan." Here are just some of the things this defection forced Iraq to admit, as cited by Clinton: "[A]n offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum...2,000 gallons of anthrax, 25 biological-filled scud warheads, and 157 aerial bombs."

Critics ignore uncomfortable facts such as this from President Bush's speech to the United Nations on September 12, 2002. Bush mentions weapons of mass destruction briefly, and then cites Iraq's support for terrorism, its persecution of civilians, its failure to obey Security Council resolutions, "release or account for all Gulf War personnel," return the remains and return stolen property, "accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions." Bush cited the Oil for Food program, which turned out to be Kofi Annan's private Enron. You want more? We got it: "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept UN administration of funds from that program to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people. If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq, and it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis."

On March 17 of 2003, Bush delivered his final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. The president talked a lot about weapons of mass destruction in that speech, but he also addressed all these other concerns from supporting terrorism (Has the left also forgotten the Salmon Pak terrorist training facility?) to repressing the Iraqi people. When the president addressed the Iraqi people, he didn't mention a word about WMD. He talked about freedom. Those focusing exclusively on the WMDs are simply desperate, out-of-power people seeking to inflict any damage they can on Bush. What's shocking is that they're the same people who always honored themselves by speaking out in favor of human rights, yet they would've left the Iraqi people to the tender mercies of Saddam's thugs rather than see them liberated by this president.